Harry Bosch 01 - The Black Echo

by Michael Connelly

  "I didn't forget. I just wanted to say something private." He stood mute at the foot of the bed until Bosch nodded. "You are good at what you do, Detective Bosch. Anybody knows that. But that doesn't mean you are a good police officer. You refuse to be part of the Family. And that's not good. And, meantime, you see, I have this department to protect. To me, that's the most important job in the world. And one of the best ways to do that is to control public opinion. Keep everybody happy. So if it means putting out a couple of nice press releases and putting on a couple of big funerals with the mayor and the TV cameras and all the brass there, that's what we are going to do. The protection of the department is more important than the fact that two dumb cops made a mistake.

  "Same goes for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They will grind you up before they publicly flog themselves with Rourke. So what I am telling you is that rule one is you have to go along to get along."

  "That's bullshit and you know it."

  "No, I do not know it. Deep down neither do you. Let me ask you something. Why is it, you think, that Lewis and Clarke were pulled back on the investigation of the Dollmaker shooting? Who do you think reined them in?"

  When Bosch didn't say anything Irving nodded. "You see, we had to make a decision. Would it be better to see one of our detectives dragged through the papers and brought up on criminal charges, or for him to be quietly demoted and transferred?" He let that hang there a few seconds before continuing. "Another thing. Lewis and Clarke came to me last week with the story about what you did to them. Cuffing them to that tree. Very brutal, that was. But they were as happy as a couple of high school cheerleaders after an evening with the football team. They had you by the balls and were ready to put the paper in right then. They—"

  "They had me, but I had them."

  "No. That's what I'm telling you. They came to me with this story about the bug in the phone, what you told them. But the thing is, they didn't drop the bug in your phone, like you thought. I checked it out. That is what I am telling you. They had you."

  "Then who—" Bosch stopped right there. He knew the answer.

  "I told them to hold back a few days. To watch, see what happened. Something was going on. Those two men were always hard to bridle when it came to you. They overstepped when they decided to stop that fellow Avery and then told him to take them back to the vault. They paid the price."

  "What about the FBI, what do they say about the bug?"

  "I don't know and I'm not asking. If I did, they would say, 'What bug?' You know that."

  Bosch nodded and was immediately tired of the man. A thought was pushing into his head that he didn't want to allow in. He looked away from Irving to the window. Irving told him once more to think of the department before he did anything, then walked out. When he was sure Irving had made his way down the hall, Bosch lashed out with his left arm and sent the vase of daisies tumbling into the corner of the room. The vase was plastic and didn't break. The damage was just spilled water and flowers. Galvin Junior's ferret face momentarily poked in and then out of the room. He said nothing, but it tipped Bosch that the IAD man was posted outside in the hall. Was that for his protection? Or for the department's? Bosch didn't know. He didn't know anything anymore.

  Bosch pushed away an untouched tray containing an institutional meal of turkey loaf with flour gravy, corn, yams, a hard roll that was supposed to be soft, and strawberry shortcake with flat whipped cream.

  "You eat that, you might never get out of here."

  He looked up. It was Eleanor. She stood in the open door, smiling. He smiled back. He couldn't help himself.

  "I know."

  "How are you, Harry?"

  "Okay. I'll be okay. Might not be able to do chin-ups anymore, but I'll survive with that. How are you, Eleanor?"

  "I'm fine," she said, and her smile just slayed him. "They put you through the Veg-O-Matic today?"

  "Oh, yeah. Sliced and diced. The best and the brightest of my fine department—a couple of your pals, too— had me on the ropes all morning. There's a chair on this side."

  She circled the bed but continued standing next to the chair. She looked around and a slight frown creased her brow, as if she knew this room and therefore knew something wasn't right.

  "They got me, too. Last night. They wouldn't let me come see you till they were through with you. Orders. Didn't want us going together on the story. But I guess our stories came out all right. At least they didn't pull me back in after they talked to you today. Told me that was it."

  "They find the diamonds?"

  "Not that I've heard, but they aren't telling me much anymore. They've got two crews working it today, but I'm out of it. I'm on a desk till it cools off and the shooting team finishes up. They're still probably at Rourke's place looking."

  "What about Tran and Binh, they cooperate?"

  "No. They aren't saying word one. I know that from a friend who was on the interrogation. They don't know anything about any diamonds. Probably got their own people together in a posse. They'll be out on the treasure hunt, too."

  "Where do you think the treasure is?"

  "I don't have any idea. This whole thing, Harry, it's kind of thrown me. I don't know what I think about things anymore."

  That included how she thought about him, he knew. He didn't say anything and after a while the silence became uneasy.

  "What happened, Eleanor? Irving told me Lewis and Clarke intercepted Avery. But that's all I know. I don't understand."

  "They watched us watch the vault all night. They must've gotten it into their heads that we were lookouts. If you start with the assumption that you were a bad cop, like they did, then you might come to the same conclusion. So when they see you turn Avery away and send the two uniforms home, they figure they know your game. They grab Avery at Darling's and he tells them about your visit the day before, and all the alarms this week, and then he lets it slip that you didn't want him to open the vault."

  "And they said, 'You mean you can open the vault?' and the next thing is they are sneaking down the alley."

  "Yeah. They had an idea about being heroes. Catching the bad cops and the robbers all at once. Nice plan until the payoff."

  "Poor dumb jerks."

  "Poor dumb jerks."

  The silence came back then and Eleanor didn't wait for it to settle.

  "Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing."

  He nodded.

  "And . . . and to tell you—"

  Here it is, he thought, the kiss good-bye.

  "—I've decided to quit. I'm going to leave the bureau."

  "What about. . . . What will you do?"

  "I don't know. But I'm going to leave here, Harry. I have some money so I'll travel awhile and then see what I want to do."

  "Eleanor, why?"

  "I don't—it's hard for me to explain. But everything that happened. Everything about the job has turned to shit. And I don't think I can go back and work in that squad room again after what has happened."

  "Will you come back to L.A.?"

  She looked down at her hands and then around the room again.

  "I don't know. Harry, I'm sorry. It seemed like—I don't know, I'm very confused about things right now."

  "What things?"

  "I don't know. Us. What's happened. Everything." Silence filled the room again and it seemed so loud that Bosch hoped a nurse or even Galvin Junior would stick a head in to see if everything was all right. He needed a cigarette badly. He realized it was the first time today that he had thought about smoking. Eleanor looked down at her feet now, and he looked over at his untouched food. He picked up the roll and started to toss it up and down in his hand like a baseball. After a while Eleanor's eyes made their third trip around the room without seeing whatever it was she was looking for. Bosch couldn't figure it out.

  "Didn't you get the flowers I sent?"

  "Flowers?"

  "Yes, I sent daisies. Like the ones growing on the hill below your house. I don
't see any in here."

  Daisies, Bosch thought. The vase he had knocked against the wall. Where are my goddam cigarettes, he wanted to yell.

  "They'll probably come later. They only make deliveries up here once a day."

  She frowned.

  "You know," Bosch said, "if Rourke knew we'd found the second vault and were watching it, and if he knew that we watched Tran go in and clear his box, why didn't he get his people out? That really bothers me about this whole thing. Why'd he go through with it?"

  She shook her head slowly, "I don't know. Maybe . . . well, I've been thinking that maybe he wanted them to go down. He knew those guys, maybe he knew it would work out that they'd go down shooting, that without them he'd get to keep all the diamonds from the first vault."

  "Yeah. But you know, I've been remembering things all day. About when we were down there. It's been coming back, and I remember that he didn't say he'd get it all. He said something about his share being bigger now with Meadows and the other two dead. He still used the word 'share,' like there was still someone else to split it with."

  She raised her eyebrows. "Maybe, but it's just semantics, Harry."

  "Maybe."

  "I've got to go. You know how long they'll keep you?"

  "Haven't been told, but I think tomorrow I'll take myself out. Thinking about going to Meadows's funeral over at veterans."

  "A Memorial Day funeral. Sounds appropriate to me."

  "Want to go with me?"

  "Mmmm, no. I don't think I want anything more to do with Mr. Meadows. . . . But I'll be at the bureau tomorrow. Clearing out my desk and writing up status sheets on the cases I'll have to pass to other agents. You could come by if you'd like. I'll brew you some fresh coffee like before. But, you know, I don't really think they are going to let you out so fast, Harry. Not with a bullet wound. You need to rest. You need to heal some."

  "Sure," Bosch said. He knew she was saying good-bye to him.

  "Okay, then, maybe I'll see you."

  She leaned over and kissed him good-bye, and he knew it was good-bye to everything about them. She was almost out the door before he opened his eyes.

  "One last thing," he said, and she turned at the door and looked back at him. "How'd you find me, Eleanor? You know, in the tunnels with Rourke."

  She hesitated and her eyebrows went up again.

  "Well, I went down with Hanlon. But when we got out of the hand-dug tunnel we split up. He went one way in that first line and I went the other. I picked the winner. I found the blood. Then I found Franklin. Dead. And after that I was a little lucky. I heard the shots and then the voices. Mostly Rourke's voice. I followed that. Why did you think of that now?"

  "I don't know. It just sort of came up. You saved my life."

  They looked at each other. Her hand was on the door handle and it was open just enough so that Bosch could look past her and see Galvin Junior still there, sitting in a chair in the hallway.

  "All I can say is thanks."

  She made a shushing sound, dismissing his gratitude.

  "You don't have to say anything."

  "Don't quit."

  He saw the crack in the door disappear, Junior with it. She stood there silently.

  "Don't leave."

  "I must. I'll see you, Harry."

  She pulled the door all the way open now.

  "Good-bye," she said, and then she was gone.

  Bosch remained motionless on the hospital bed for the better part of an hour. He was thinking about two people: Eleanor Wish and John Rourke. For a long time he closed his eyes and dwelt on the look on Rourke's face as he crumpled and went down into the black water. I'd be surprised, too, Bosch thought, but there was also something else there, something he couldn't exactly identify. Some kind of knowing look of recognition and resolution—not of his dying, but of another, secret knowledge.

  After a while he got up and took a few tentative steps alongside his bed. His body felt weak, yet all the sleep in the last thirty-six hours had made him restless. After he got his bearings and his shoulder made a slightly painful adjustment to gravity, he began to pace back and forth alongside the bed. He was wearing pale green hospital pajamas, not one of the opened-back smocks that he would have found humiliating. He padded around the room in bare feet, stopping to read the cards that had come with the flowers. The protective league had sent one of the vases. The others came from a couple of cops he knew but wasn't particularly close to, the widow of an old partner, his union lawyer and another old partner who lived in Ensenada.

  He walked away from the flowers and went to the door. He opened it a crack and saw Galvin Junior still sitting there, reading a police equipment catalog. Bosch pulled the door all the way open. Galvin's head jerked up and he slapped the magazine closed and slipped it into a briefcase at his feet. He didn't say anything.

  "So, Clifford—I hope I can call you that—what are you doing here? Am I supposed to be in danger?"

  The younger cop didn't say anything. Bosch glanced up and down the hall and saw that it was empty all the way down to the nurses' station about fifty feet away. He looked at his door and noticed he was in room 313.

  "Detective, please go back in your room," Galvin finally said. "I am only here to keep the press out of your room. The deputy chief thinks they will probably try to get in to get an interview with you, and my job is to prevent that, to prevent you from being disturbed."

  "What if they use the sneaky method of just"—Bosch made a show of looking up and down the hall to make sure no one would hear—"using the telephone?"

  Galvin exhaled loudly and continued not to look at Bosch, "The nurses are screening incoming calls. Only family, and I am told you don't have family, so no calls."

  "How'd that lady FBI agent get by you?"

  "She was cleared by Irving. Go back into your room, please."

  "Certainly."

  Bosch sat on his bed and tried to go over the case again in his mind. But the more he turned the parts of it over the more he got an anxious feeling that sitting on a bed in a hospital room was wasting time. He felt he was onto something, a breakthrough in the logic of the case. A detective's job was to walk down the trail of evidence, examine each piece and take it with him. At the end of the trail, what he had in his basket made or lost the case. Bosch had a full basket, but he began to believe there were pieces missing. What had he missed? What had Rourke told him at the end? Not so much in his words but his meaning. And the look on his face. Surprise. But surprise at what? Was he shocked at the bullet? Or shocked by where, and who, it came from? It could have been both, Bosch decided, and either way, what did it mean?

  Rourke's reference to his share growing larger because of the deaths of Meadows, Franklin and Delgado continued to bother him. He tried to put himself in Rourke's position. If all his partners were dead and he was suddenly the sole beneficiary of the first vault caper, would he say, "My share has gone up," or would be simply say, "It's all mine"? Bosch's gut feeling was he would say the latter, unless there was still someone else sharing in the pot.

  He decided he had to do something. He had to get out of this room. He was not under house arrest, but he knew that if he left Galvin was there to follow and report to Irving. He checked the phone and found that it had been turned on as Irving promised. No calls in, but Harry could call out.

  He got up and checked the closet. His clothes were there, what was left of them. Shoes, socks and pants, that was it. The pants had abrasion marks on the knees but had been cleaned and pressed by the hospital. His sport coat and shirt had probably been taken off with scissors in the ER and either thrown away or put in an evidence bag. He grabbed all the clothing and got dressed, tucking his pajama top into his pants when he was done. He looked cloddish, but it would do until he got some clothes on the outside.

  The pain in his shoulder was least when he held his arm up in front of his chest, so he began to put his belt around his shoulders to use it as a sling. But deciding that would make him too noti
ceable going out of the hospital, he put the belt back through the loops of his pants. He checked the drawer of the nightstand and found his wallet and badge, but no gun.

  When he was ready, he picked up the phone on the bedside table, dialed the operator and asked for the third-floor nursing station. A woman's voice said hello and Bosch identified himself as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. "Can you get Detective Galvin, my man on the chair down the hall, to come to the phone? I need to speak with him."

  Bosch put the phone down on the bed and walked softly to the door. He opened it just wide enough to see Galvin sitting on the chair reading the catalog again. Bosch heard the nurse's voice calling him to the phone, and Galvin got up. Bosch waited about ten seconds before looking down the hall. Galvin was still walking toward the nurses' station. Bosch stepped out of the room and began walking quietly the opposite way.

  After ten yards there was an intersection of hallways and Bosch took a left. He came to an elevator with a sign above it that said Hospital Personnel Only and he punched the button. When it came, it was a stainless steel and fake wood-grain affair with another set of doors at the back, big enough for at least two beds to be wheeled in. He pushed the first-floor button and the door closed. His treatment for the bullet wound had ended.

  The elevator dropped Bosch off in the emergency room. He walked through and out into the night. On the way to Hollywood Station in a cab, he had the driver stop at his bank, where he got money out of an ATM, and then at a Sav-On drugstore, where he bought a cheap sport shirt, a carton of cigarettes, a lighter since he couldn't handle matches, and some cotton, fresh bandages and a sling. The sling was navy blue. It would be perfect for a funeral.

  He paid the cabdriver at the station on Wilcox and went in through the front door, where he knew there was less chance that he would be recognized or spoken to. There was a rookie he didn't know on the front desk with the same pimple-faced Explorer Scout who had brought the pizza to Sharkey. Bosch held up his badge and passed by without saying a word. The detective bureau was dark and deserted, as it was on most Sunday nights, even in Hollywood. Bosch had a desk light clamped to his spot at the homicide table. He turned it on rather than using the bureau's ceiling lights, which might draw curious patrol officers down the hall from the watch commander's office. Harry didn't feel like answering questions, even the well-meaning ones from the uniform troops.